The Intentional Life

NEWSFLASH: These pages are so hopelessly outdated. I'm trying to bring them up to speed. But in the meantime, if you're reading this section, you may be interested in knowing that I actually live in an intentional community now. Someday it will be discussed here, but in the meantime you can just check out our website and find out what I'm up to: Meadowdance Community

The Intentional Life is a conscious one. A life that has been considered and created. Many lives are merely lived, they follow in the ruts of those who came before them, and move along at the pace of those who move with them. But an intentional life is something brand new, created by the one who lives it. It follows in no paths and moves to the beat of its own drummer. It need not be flamboyant, it may be as nondescript as those that surround it. But it is remarkable in that it is the right life for the one who owns it.

I take care to consider how I want my life to be spent. I consider what my needs and wants are, and move forward based on those things. Like anyone else, I'm influenced by my peers and my society. But I try to listen to myself more than them. There have been a lot of things that society has prepared for me and I have decided I did not want. And I was only aware of that because I considered the possibility, because I want every action in my life to be intentional. It can be spontaneous, I just don't want it to be someone else's. Because I am the only one who could ever know how to live my life.

Simplicity It all started with two people. Two people helped me begin to form my ideas of the intentional life. First was Jane Goodall . When I was young I wanted to be a biologist. More specifically I wanted to be Jane Goodall. I wanted to study ecology or animals or something. What I studied wasn't important at the time, what struck me most was the lifestyle. I couldn't wait to go to Africa, to live in the wild, to be back in nature, to live life at its truest. When I hit high school I was interested in philosophy, and it was Thoreau that struck closest to my conception of the world. Here was Jane Goodall's life in the wild, endorsed by an intellectual. This exciting vision of mine was given a name, simplicity. Eventually biological research lost its allure, but simplicity remained. I became a convert to Henry David Thoreau's thinking. I still wanted to live in the tiny cabin in the jungle, now I hoped that it would help me to understand life. I aspire to face life as truly as he did. To be able to cut things down to a home, a desk and your mind. A home so simple that even a rock is too much ornament for it. "I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and I threw them out the window in disgust." This little quote is enough to show what simplicity means to Thoreau, and to me. Every possession that we own, every obligation, every job, every debt, requires a portion of our mind, of our time and of our lives. The more of these things we have, the less we are able to focus on life. Every rock you throw off your desk means more time you have for your thoughts and for nature. Every less thing in the room makes life that much more clearer to our eyes. Thoreau hoped to remove everything that wasn't absolutely necessary. And from that vantage he would be looking life square in the face. He would be looking himself in the face. In a society so good at distracting itself, Thoreau's message is that much more important, and so much harder to follow through on. We find it hard to focus on philosophy and nature when we have careers and mortgages and politics and entertainment. And that is why Thoreau gave that all up. It's a hard task, but one that I am working on. I want to find my necessities, to remove everything else extra and face my life, my thoughts, my marriage, my friends, my family, someday my children, all square in the face. So that when it all ends I will have sucked out the marrow. Homesteading In order to get down to the marrow of life, Thoreau had to focus on only the necessities. He defined these as Food, Shelter, Fuel and Clothing. He was determined to provide these in the simplest means possible, so that he could move on to his more important tasks. And so he built his own house, grew his food, gathered his fuel and kept to his old, practical clothing. It was Thoreau who was my first inspiration in homesteading. I eventually discovered that Thoreau and I weren't the only ones interested in living simply and providing for ourselves. I began to discover a ream of books from the back-to-the-land movement in the 1970's. I also discovered Helen and Scott Nearing, a couple who homesteaded in the 1920's, and continued to do so until their deaths. For me, the concept of homesteading is to allow a simple life by providing shelter and food without mortgages, loans and jobs. The Nearings were able to live while working only four hours a day, on their own land. They built their own houses and outbuildings, grew their own food, and provided for all their other needs. This left them a surplus of time in which they could write, make music and pursue their interests in peace and social justice. This is the type of life I want to lead. My interest in building my own house and growing my own food led me into solar architecture and organic gardening. Not only are these practices environmentally sound, but they give the homesteader more freedom and power over their home. They take architecture and farming away from the professionals, and the chemical and steel companies. Composting and solar heat, greywater systems and greenhouses are things the homeowners can create, control and understand themselves. Homesteading is all about decentralization, about giving individuals power and responsibility for their own lives. There is something more satisfying about working directly for your meal, rather than working to earn money to buy somebody else's food. And who wouldn't want to design their own house. Upon learning about all this, my plans were to eventually buy a piece of land, build a house, grow some food and raise a family. Intentional Communities But then I took a class called An Internship In Sustainable Living. This class was run by a group called the Gaia Education Outreach Institute. It involved living at a site in Southwestern New Hampshire for a month, learning about sustainable living and planning an eco-village to be built on the site in the future. This course introduced me to the world of intentional communities: groups of people who wish to live with each other, in a closer manner than most of us do. These communities are a chance to create sane living structures. To make a place where people can develop meaningful relationships, can live lightly on the earth, and can contribute something to the world and people around them. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some are concerned with ecology, others with religion, others with arts, or anything else that is under the sun. The key is that they are intentional. These people choose to live together because they share values and ideas. I never knew that these types of communities existed. But once I did, I knew that this was something that I needed. I want to live with a group of people who are devoted to getting to know each other. In a community with a common house where the members eat together, and share other interests together. A place where I know all my neighbors, and where my neighbors are people I can share and be open with. A place where we will all pitch in and build our houses, and grow our food. Where we will all face our lives together. I don't know how I'm going to get there, but now I have a vision. If you'd like to read more about my experiences that summer with GEO, then read The Secret Land. To read more of my thoughts on the intentional life, check out some of my newsletter entries. If you want to learn more about intentional communities, then there is one place to go. The IC Web Site, is where you'll find articles about community living, links to community web pages, and lists of communities from around the world. Loafing If you are going to have an Intentional Life, I think one of the first things you have to do away with is this Puritan work ethic that most Americans, at least, are infected with. I decided a while ago that I did not want a career. I do not want 'success', or money. What I want is a happy life. And that means spending a lot more time doing nothing. Just sitting under a tree, or listening to music all day, or spending a weekend reading a book. It can also mean not taking the big job, not going to college, not going for the brass ring, if those things would get in the way of happiness. And more than practical concerns, what stops a lot of people from doing that is our work ethic, which is ingrained in us. I chose not to go to college, and ever since I've had to fight the idea that I'm lazy, that I'm not doing anything with my life. But I don't believe that we have to always be working. And I don't think that we need to accomplish big things in order to have succeeded at life. I did not go to college, and possibly I never will. I have no career aspirations. I may never be published as a writer. But I've spent hours pondering just about every aspect of my life. I've sat in the grass and watched the birds, I've sat on a bench and watched the people. I've wandered for hours inside my mind with my imagination. I've been moved by music and cried over books and movies. I've had some great talks with other people, and some great silences. Someday I'll have children and grandchildren, I'll weed my garden and hopefully I'll have even more time to sit around than I do now. I think those are some great accomplishments. Or maybe they're not great, but they're the kind of memories I'd like to have at the end of my life. I want to be a loafer when I grow up. Therefore I don't want a career. My interests change too quickly for any one job to occupy me for long. I want my days to be open to whatever I want to do. That's why homesteading is the life for me. Like the Nearings I hope to make my living working at my home for four hours a day. If I minimize my needs then that leaves more time for me to do as I please. A lot of people want to work to get high-paying jobs, so that they can afford to do what they want. But I think they find that they don't have much time to make use of that money, they are so busy working. They'd be better off learning how to entertain themselves without money, that way they are not dependent on others to provide them with their life. People need to find out more about part-time work or work that is more important to them. People should provide for their needs without sacrificing the majority of their lives. I think that the concept of a career does a disservice to us. I don't mind working for something that I want. But I certainly am not going to sign myself up for life. The loafer is not contributing anything to the world. That's an accusation I often face, as did Thoreau, the Nearings, and countless others. First of all I must point out that not contributing anything to the work force is not the same as not contributing. The Nearings made a living off of four hours a day. But they spend the rest of that time championing social justice, writing a shelf-full of books, speaking and teaching to hundreds of people. They were certainly not lazy loafers. But whether or not I ever do such great things, I refuse to belittle my life. My first responsibility on this planet is to live well. As I (and Wendell Berry) see it, "We have no right to hope for a better world unless we make ourselves better men." And I feel that perhaps the greatest thing we can do for others is to provide an example; to be "an instance and an example of sane living in an insane world." That is what I have wanted most from others in life; not for them to tell me what to do, but to provide an example of what can be done. For you can never know what the results of your actions will be, or force another to follow your ways. But, "If he is a peaceable man, then he has assured a measure of peace in the world, though he may never utter a public word." Loafing is not really something you need resources for. But if you are interested in how to simplify your life in order to loaf more, you might want some. One good spot is the Simple Living Network. They have some interesting articles for you. Vegetarianism One of the things which I have chosen for my life is to be a vegetarian. I often am asked why I did so, and there are more reasons than I can usually remember. But what it comes down to is, why not? What's the reason not to be a vegetarian in this place and age? If we human beings do not have to eat meat, then why should we? That's all there is to it. I can live perfectly well without eating flesh, so ethically I don't see how I could do otherwise. I was motivated by a lot of reasons to be a vegetarian. One is the ethical stance, that living off the flesh of animals is wrong. Killing animals itself is not intrinsically wrong, but killing them for food when other food is plentiful is wrong. And more than the killing, the way that livestock is treated is reason enough to boycott such practice. I think that it is wrong to take animals out of their natural habitat and raise them in pens or cages solely for our sustenance. We are going to give them their death, but this is taking their life as well. I have far less of a problem with eating meat that comes from free range animals, ones that are allowed to lead their natural life before we feed from it. There's a lot more than compassion involved in the choice to be a vegetarian though. How about health. We all should know by now that the best diet is one high in fruits and vegetables. Meat, while not an unhealthy addition if occasional, does very little for our nutrition. It does nothing that vegetable products can't do better, and can do a lot of harm if eaten at normal American levels. If you are afraid you will be missing some vital nutrient, than please take some vitamin supplements. But don't slaughter animals for it. Rest assured that a wide range of fruits and vegetables will provide for all your needs. And how about the environment. One of the worst offenders in destroying our farmlands and environment is the livestock industry. The core of the problem is the excessive amounts of land, water and energy that go into producing livestock feed. Seventy percent of the U.S. grain production goes to feed livestock. Sixty-four percent of our cropland goes to producing livestock feed. Only two percent is used to grow fruits and vegetables. In a world where 20 million people die of starvation a year, it is immoral to be using so much of our resources to produce meat. And in a world where our terrible industrial farming techniques are polluting and wasting away our soil and water, we certainly can't afford to use more land and water than necessary. What it comes down to is that the amount of meat an average American eats could feed seven people if it was left in its original state of grain and soy. Raising meat is just not a sustainable practice, and as someone who cares about the future I can't condone it. Those are my reasons for being a vegetarian. If you'd like to read some more of my thoughts on the subject, then check out my newsletter on vegetarianism, or this one on nutrition. And if you want some veggie info on the web, then I reccomend that you start at veg.org, they have a lot of information.

"Each man had but one vocation - to find the way to himself. He might end up as poet or madman, as prophet or criminal - that was not his affair, ultimately it was of no concern. His task was to discover his own destiny - not an arbitrary one - and live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else was only a would-be existence, an attempt at evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of one's own inwardness." -Herman Hesse "When the sun rises, I go to work. When the sun goes down, I take my rest, I dig the well from which I drink, I farm the soil which yields my food, I share creation, Kings can do no more." -Chinese Proverb "Wouldn't it make infinitely more sense to put our hearts and souls -and hands- into building ourselves a home, getting by, finding a lover, and finding good friends, while working full-bore at becoming the wisest, kindest, wittiest, most creative human beings we can be? Then, if the urge moves us, only then, we would go out and get a Steady Job." -Ferenc Mate "If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if a town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down!" -Henry David Thoreau "Though I am by no means a vegetarian, I dislike the thought that some animal has been made miserable in order to feed me. If I am going to eat meat, I want it to be from an animal that has lived a pleasant, uncrowded life outdoors, on bountiful pasture, with good water nearby and trees for shade." -Wendell Berry "Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at." -Henry David Thorea "A Indian went to sell baskets at the house of a well-known lawyer in my neighborhood...he had said to himself: I will go into business; I will weave baskets; it is a thing which I can do. Thinking that when he had made the baskets he would have done his part, and then it would be the white man's to buy them. He had not discovered that it was necessary for him to make it worth the other's while to buy them...I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate texture, but I had not made it worth any one's while to buy them. Yet not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them." -Henry David Thoreau